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A few weeks ago, I finished reading “Loud and Clear” – a compilation of columns by Anna Quindlen. She was my favorite journalist for many years – a writer who could force us to think yet remain approachable.

With each column, I reminded myself – I should have been a journalist like Anna. I should have majored in a field that was steeped in words.

But my “shoulds” after high school were always underscored with the need to prove myself, with rules to obey, with dying to self to the point of killing the soul.

Back then, I did not realize how the forming of sentences could serve, help others, minister comfort.

I wish now for a do-over of life, but know I can only move into the foreshadowing of my destiny.

So on this day – may the words of my mouth and of my pen and computer keyboard be acceptable to God and meaningful to my readers.

I find direction in the Amplified version of Psalm 37:5 – laced with my own interpretation:

As a writer, I commit my way – the very path of my words to you, God

I roll and repose every care on You

May my thoughts be infused with clarity and creativity

To You I give my emotional load and the sorrow that still wraps me in painful tentacles

I determine to trust You for my comfort – in spite of the siren call of chocolate and ice cream cartons that scream, “Eat me! You’ll feel better.”

Leaning hard on the divine, I declare You are my eternal Husband and Maker – worthy of my life-long trust

I am confident Your role in my life is good and You will determine the factors of my future life

I sincerely and genuinely believe You will bring to pass Your perfect plan and somehow – I will be safe within that blueprint.

But how do all these bullet points actually happen? How do we step from the germ of faith into the staircase of upward-moving activity?

By paying attention to Psalm 37:7 – the same Amplified and RJT version:

By being still – listening to the quiet pulsings of my heart

By resting in the divine – letting Him do His thing in me and through me although rest is sometimes the scariest activity for this Type A writer

By waiting on God – for His best timing to work everything out for my good

By believing the divine does indeed have a good plan – in spite of the not-so-good stuff going on around me

By patiently leaning on Him – letting the Eternal One do His work without my interference, without my plunging ahead to make something happen because it’s easier to trust me than this entity I cannot see

By not worrying about what tomorrow brings

By not comparing myself, my work or my life to any other homo sapien who is probably struggling just as much as I

By not trying to sort out the “why’s” of life because reasons lie in eternal vaults of understanding